r (By arrangement with the Daily Telegraph.) with coolies who wished to carry it off in all directions, willy-nilly, he would come smiling up and greet you by name, with the hope that you had prospered since the last meeting, and th. another special tax and so on and so on. Sizce it was necessary to pay or spend the night outside the city, you paid, and then suffered the discomforts of the crossing. On arrival on the ur family flourished exceed- other bank, ther ingly. These formalities donc} baggage.
An with, there came the question o: entirely new band of officials the protection.
It was a sma sum, hardly worth arguing had, in the short space taken to span the river, become sup about. And in travelling country you very soon find 0} that it is little use holding on principle against official cious that their comrades on the other side had allowed some ut particularly deadly contraband 1s. to slip through. So it all had te Besides his smile was so charming and his solicitude to see t! ho transaction through—withes any fuss so disarming, that you paid up and parted friends, be done over again, and y paid. cee At the city gates, to which you came in about ten minutes, the The Nanchang railway stati is on the other side of the riv: was another tax bureau." It is ion impossible to remember the or names of all the taxes which from the city itself, and crossing in those days used be made in large sampans. T only way to reach these samba was along gangways of plan set up on trestles. Perha, he to he us were produced. Some you hac to pay, others the tax-gathers were willing to waive if you uted too hotly. It was absolutely necessary, however, 5 that something had to be paid, things have been improved now, or you did not get in, There but then the only means of] was no other way of passing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.